Baleroc tips

Our guild is starting to work on Baleroc now we have the first 4 normal mode bosses on farm.

I have a shadowpriest priest related query regarding sucking the torment stacks from the crystal.

Ive been reading that a shadow can suck the all stacks from an entire crystal spawn using dispersion. Not only would this be great as it allows our healers to stack their Vital Sparks higher, but will allow much easier rotation on the crystals.

Now my question is this. Is it possible for me to suck up 19 stacks then disperse without having the http://www.wowhead.com/?item=62471 - Tol Barad trinket (Mirror or Broken Images)?

Our guild is starting to work on Baleroc now we have the first 4 normal mode bosses on farm.

I have a shadowpriest priest related query regarding sucking the torment stacks from the crystal.

Ive been reading that a shadow can suck the all stacks from an entire crystal spawn using dispersion. Not only would this be great as it allows our healers to stack their Vital Sparks higher, but will allow much easier rotation on the crystals.

Now my question is this. Is it possible for me to suck up 19 stacks then disperse without having the http://www.wowhead.com/?item=62471 - Tol Barad trinket (Mirror or Broken Images)?

Would popping my PW:S allow me to do this without the trinket?

Independent if you go that way about "1 shadow - 1 shard" tactics - it is not too hard to make two teams of two. I doubt it is THIS which prevents you from a kill. I actually implemented a little addon which screams at people when their "shard-partner" has too many stacks (or if they themselves have too many). Not publicly available, but if someone needs it... (it doesn't have fancy UI, though, as it was only meant for in-guild-use). Anyways, we use "two teams of two" for both our raids for the shards,
and it is really not that hard (even for the shadow we have a second person, though I guess he could do it without the trinket or other person with dispersion).

BTW, another little trick which helped our second raidgroup when they were still learning the boss to make the encounter easier: We had our best equipped tank (that was my alt ;-) ) solo-tank the boss, and whenever decimation blade came up,
our moonkin taunted, and shortly before the boss reached the moonkin the tank taunted back. This simplified tank-handling (only 1 tank to heal) a lot, made one more DPS available for the encounter - and also it is hilarious seeing the boss running
through the room on each decimation blade ^^

Actually the second group insisted on doing this tactics every time now, even though it was meant only as initial
learning tactics, and they kill the boss every week like this.

Link your setup and it will be much easier to help. You can't take up to 19 stacks without any cooldown tho.

We are a 10 man casual raid group and as such our raiding roster changes every time we run. We have a couple of pallies (Usually Tank and DPS or DPS and Healer) so it should be ok to get them to HoS me.

I didnt think it would be possible without a cooldown - I guess ill go farm Told Barad - I hate that place tho. How long on average does it take to get exalted? 1 week? 1 month?

MagicSN - Regarding your 2 teams of 2 DPS. Thats what we were trying, but doesnt the huge amount of stacks on a ShP mean that the healers would get a major Vital Spark Buff or does it not matter?

The shard stacking really isn't the hard part of this fight. And depending on how you tank it, it's not really even that hard to tank. It's the healers coordinating their spark rotation/swapping that causes the initial screwups on this fight. I would hope that you're only asking about dispersion soaking in the event that a DPS goes down and you'd need someone to take a full shard in an emergency. I don't know what your setup is, and I don't mean this as a slight at all, but you probably aren't going to be able to afford to have a DPS down at all for the fight anyhow when you're first learning it or you'll hit the enrage (if you have an inferno tank and a decimation tank, that is).

TL;DR - Dispersion soaking is an emergency gimmick. Learn to do the fight without having a crutch.

Use that tactic if you want, just use PS or HoS at 11 stacks.... but after that first shard, go back to normal 2 manning shards. Bare in mind the tank will need to pop a large cd, Lay on hands, to survive the last couple of hits.

Not entirely sure how much dmg it does exactly at 19 stacks, but sac / pain sup / aura mastery / spirit link / dg is enough, you don't need the trinket that badly. Remember that you're gonna be bombarded with heals from your healers when you reach 10+ stacks (if they do it right). And if you only take the 1st shard with disp the healers will even have heroism.

So are you saying that me gaining all those stacks of Torment wont allow the healers Vital Spark buffs to be any higher than it would be of we just use the 2 DPS switch strat?

Depending on how you tank the encounter, the stacks won't matter at the start of the fight. I'll explain how our guild does it, and we're not something special - just got Rag down on normal for the first time last week.

DK tank starts the fight picking up Bale and gaining the HP buff. Warrior tank steals Baleroc after the first Inferno just to build up enough HPs (250-275k) to be the Decimation tank. Resto shaman starts fight healing up DK, resto druid and disc priest start healing the tormented to build up stacks. Once the disc priest has enough spark stacks, he'll rotate with the resto shaman. The druid stays on the tormented the entire time, except when blades hit. So we're constantly rotating the resto shaman and the disc priest on tank heals, calling out switches on vent. Near the middle of the fight, the resto druid has 100 stacks, the other rotating two slightly less, but it doesn't really matter by this point. Deci tank gets healed to full with every heal from resto seeing that he has the bare minimum of HPs needed, and the DK can mitigate/self heal a good portion of the Inferno blades.

Use that tactic if you want, just use PS or HoS at 11 stacks.... but after that first shard, go back to normal 2 manning shards. Bare in mind the tank will need to pop a large cd, Lay on hands, to survive the last couple of hits.

Yeah I wont be able to do the single priest crystal soak strat all the time as I will need to wait on dispersion cooldown.

We are working on the two tank strat for the moment....not to worried about downing the boss yet as we havent even reached the enrage timer. If we get the tactics nailed we will have a go at 1 tank strat.

Get your holy paladin or prot paladin to HoS you at 10 stacks. That will last up to the 22nd stack leaving you safe to disperse at 20 stacks and not run the risk of getting one shot by the last tick (as has happened to our S.priest if he disperses at 19 from time to time).

But yeah, the torment tanking and Baleroc tanking part is really very simple. The hard part is organising your healers and making them realise that *UNLIKE ANY OTHER FIGHT* they can't do their usual "if its hurt I'l heal it" and it has to be very defined who is healing who when. If a healer throws a heal on the tank they can't stack vital spark again for 15 seconds. This will lead to low vital spark stacks if you aren't organised.

Pop your single target cooldowns on the tank (get him to Guardian of Ancient Kings/Shield Wall etc. aswell) like Pain Suppression or any other MITIGATION cooldowns so that 1 healer (preferably your least performing) can keep him up throught the first torment. If you pop heroism and your two best healers are steaming the vital spark from your shadowpriest tanking skillz they shoudl be well ahead of the fight before the second shard appears.

HOWEVER

You will wipe again and again at around 20-30% if you don't make sure the healers know EXACTLY who is stacking spark and who is healing tank.

1st shard = 1+2 on Torment, 3 on Tank
2nd shard = 2+3 on Torment, 1 on Tank <== Healer 2 should now be on 70+ stacks
3rd shard = 1+3 on Torment, 2 on Tank <== Healer 1 should have about 70-100 stacks at this stage, any lower and they should go research
4th Shard = 2+3 on Torment, 1 on Tank
5th Shard = 1 on Torment, 2+3 on Tank
6th Shard = 2 on Torment, 1+3 on Tank
7th Shard = 3 on Torment, 1+2 on Tank
8th Shard = 1 on Torment, 2+3 on Tank

Etc.

This will allow for some burst stacking for healers 1+2 at the start when risk of tank death is pretty low and no chance of decimation blades. However once Decimation blades hits you may well want at least one heal from all 3 healers, which is why its important to follow this as best you can so you can afford to panic heal the tank during decimation blades and still return to the pattern of stacking so you don't 'run out' by the last 20%

If you lose this coordination and healers panic heal the tank, then you won't have enough stacks left for the last 20% or so as the boss will just own your tank when he blades up. If ever your healers reach about 140-150 stacks they can stay on the tank for the remainder of the fight really.

Sorry for rambling answer, hope it helps =)

ALSO:

Its possible to hit 100 stacks during the first torment (with Heroism + Shadowpriest solo-tormenting) - at least for Resto Shaman, if you find your Healer 1+2 cn manage that, it may be adviseable to go with 2 sets of 3 players to tank tormet. Sounds mad but when only tanking torment to 8 you don't need ANY healing, which is useful during decimation blade in the second half of the fight as your healers can all 3 focus on topping the tank off between swings without worrying about a DpS hitting the dirt.

TL;DR - Dispersion soaking is an emergency gimmick. Learn to do the fight without having a crutch.

Also ^^ this

Although I'll be honest our best was a 4% wipe without a S.priest (on 25 at least). Having said that we had 7 healers that night the night we killed him had only 5. If you properly order your healing targets so its not a free for all you could probably 2 person heal it in 10 man...